Or had the light tricked her? The light must have tricked her, for in
the interval between the flash and the thunder, while she crouched
quaking, he did not move or call. The light must have deceived her. She
felt so certain of it that she found courage to remain where she was
until another flash came and showed him sleeping with closed eyes.
She drew a breath of relief at that, and rose slowly to her feet. But
she dared not go forward until a third flash had confirmed the second.
Then, while the thunder burst overhead and rolled away, she crept on
until she stood beside the pillow, and, stooping, could hear the
sleeper's breathing.
Alas! the worst remained to be done. The packet, she was sure of it, lay
under his pillow. How was she to find it, how remove it without rousing
him? A touch might awaken him. And yet, if she would not return empty-
handed, if she would not go back to the harrowing thoughts which had
tortured her through the long hours of the day, it must be done, and done
now.
She knew this, yet she hung irresolute a while, blenching before the
manual act, listening to the persistent rush and downpour of the rain.
Then a second time she drew courage from the storm. How timely had it
broken. How signally had it aided her! How slight had been her chance
without it! And so at last, resolutely but with a deft touch, she slid
her fingers between the pillow and the bed, slightly pressing down the
latter with her other hand. For an instant she fancied that the
sleeper's breathing stopped, and her heart gave a great bound. But the
breathing went on the next instant--if it had stopped--and dreading the
return of the lightning, shrinking from being revealed so near him, and
in that act--for which the darkness seemed more fitting--she groped
farther, and touched something. Then, as her fingers closed upon it and
grasped it, and his breath rose hot to her burning cheek, she knew that
the real danger lay in the withdrawal.
At the first attempt he uttered a kind of grunt and moved, throwing out
his hand. She thought that he was going to awake, and had hard work to
keep herself where she was; but he did not move, and she began again with
so infinite a precaution that the perspiration ran down her face and her
hair within the hood hung dank on her neck. Slowly, oh so slowly, she
drew back the hand, and with it the packet; so slowly, and yet so
resolutely, being put to it, that when the dreaded flash surprised her,
and she saw his harsh swarthy face, steeped in the mysterious aloofness
of sleep, within a hand's breadth of hers, not a muscle of her arm moved,
nor did her hand quiver.